last scuba class

I finally finished my last scuba class. I still have to pass the open water dives (two days of several dives in the Long Island Sound), but then I'm on to bigger and better oceans. Ones where I can actually see more than 10 feet in front of me.

And pretty soon I'll look like this:

...except that I won't be a guy. Or a turtle.

read it

Juma's reading skills are coming along nicely. Today he was a little reluctant to do his lesson because he had to learn the sound "th" (as in the, this, that). He has trouble saying that sound, and usually says, "duh" for the, "dat" for that, etc. (This is extremely cute when he says, "What duh?!?!" when he sees something unexpected.)

I decided to just postpone the reading lesson until tomorrow, and concentrate today on practicing the "th" sound to warm him up. But as soon as the bath was filled and I announced bath time, he decided it was a perfect time for reading lessons. Anything to avoid getting his hair wet.

So far in reading, he has read the phrases, "mad at me," "read it," and "see me read." He even helped me read Green Eggs and Ham, by reading "am Sam."

As for me, I just read 55 student essays. One of them even had the word "obsequious" in it.

NYC

I spent the weekend in New York City with my old childhood friend, Malia. She's lived 2 hours away from me for 3 years, and this was the first time we've visited. Pathetic.

But I hopped on the train and met up on Friday night. We did a whirlwind, cheap tour of Manhattan, seeing Columbia (where Malia got her master's degree), Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Empire State Building (lit up green for St Patrick's Day), Central Park, the Met (saw some Van Goghs, Manets, Monets, Rembrandts, etc), Chinatown, Little Italy. We also took the ferry to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan from the water.

Somehow, our focus ended up being on food: we got the best hot dogs in the world at Grey's Papaya, some New York cheesecake, some New York pizza, Italian pastries, cream puffs, frozen hot chocolate (made famous by Serendipity, the restaurant in the movie of the same name). We also saw Tom's Restaurant, the one in Seinfeld, but didn't manage to squeeze in their milkshakes.

I'll post some pictures later.

Juma and Justin saw me off at the train station. On their way home, Juma was sad and said, "I want two grown-ups at home!" But I brought him back a NY fire department toy truck, so he thinks it was worth it to miss me for a day.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

when I grow up

Juma announced, "I don't want to be Buzz Lightyear anymore when I grow up."

Oh no, what do you want to be?

"An astronaut."

Juma, growin' up

Justin took Juma clothes shopping, and you know what Juma picked out for shirts? Basketball shirts, football shirts, basketball and football. And a couple button-ups. He brought those home, so proud of his basketball shirt he put it on right there and asked me to play basketball with him. Then he changed into his football shirt and we played football. Then baseball, golf, and frisbee. Then he turned on the radio and we put on a parade for Baba, me with a tennis racket for a guitar and Juma his little goat-skin drum from Zanzibar.

Juma favors hip-hop music, likes it fast and with a beat. None of that slow stuff or blues or classical. He searches and searches 'til he finds a hip-hop station, then he calls us over to the wood floor to break dance with him.

I danced with him a while, but then stopped.
Juma: Mom, come break dance with me!
Sarah: Nah.
J: You know how to break dance?
S: No.
J: Well, I'll teach you. Come here. So it's like this. Get like a crab. Turn on your head. Yeah. Like that, see?

Juma's also learning how to read. Alisha recommended a book, and Justin's teaching Juma. He knows m, s, a, e, and t. And he's darn proud of it, too. Today he showed me he could read "meet."

He's recognizing that he has dreams. For months we've been asking him, what did you dream about last night, and for months he's said, I don't know. But one morning a few weeks ago he woke up and told Justin, "I had a dream! And you were in it. We were pigs and then we weren't we...we were on a train trying to go up a hill but couldn't. We were on sidewalk keep trying, keep trying, but couldn't. Went back to bed. That was my dream."

And you can tell I've been reading Angela's Ashes all day, because Frank McCourt's influencing my writing style today.

summer internship

I think I found an internship! I've been contacting organizations and networking with alumni to try to find a project to work on this summer while we live in Pemba, Zanzibar, Tanzania. It looks like I'll be working with a grad student from Cornell on some maternal health issues, such as antenatal care, anemia, and pica (a craving pregnant women sometimes get for non-food items, such as clay, dirt, or ice).

We'll be looking at Pemban women's perceptions, definitions, constructs, and meanings of the diseases and conditions, and how we can work within their culture and situations to improve health and health care. The approach is right up my alley, though the only time I've studied maternal health specifically is when I was pregnant. And I didn't have anemia. Or pica.

Justin really likes ice, though...

dangerous sport

I've come away from ice climbing, rock climbing, snowboarding, four trips to Africa, scuba diving, and American Idol* watching with hardly a scratch, but get me on a basketball court and the blood starts flowing. On Wednesday I split my head open once again on a bony elbow and needed a couple of staples to close the 2-inch gash.

And the guy was on my own team!

*I don't really watch this show--this was purely for comic effect.

too many nursery rhymes?

Juma: Mom, want to play monster?
Sarah: Sure, but let me put away the dinner dishes first.
Juma: Oh! Mama doesn't want to play monster with me. What a sad boy am I!

imagination

Juma thought up these goalie's hockey pads all by himself:


With a little help from Mama, Juma became an astronaut: